Tag: Philippians
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Order Matters
Do you remember learning about “order of operations” in middle school? Maybe the mention of PEMDAS just gave you PTSD! We suffered through countless homework assignments designed to remind us that it wasn’t enough to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The order in which we performed those operations could create drastically different…
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The King Among Us
One of the great films of the last fifty years tells the story of a young woman, the only child of a powerful ruler, who is completely detached from the people in her kingdom. She has grown up in privilege while others outside the palace walls struggle to survive. She refuses to eat when frustrated…
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Unity under Pressure
We all love the idea of unity. We repeat phrases like, “There is no ‘I’ in team,” or “teamwork makes the dream work,” or “we are only as strong as we are united.” Yet in reality, pressure often exposes how fragile unity can be. As difficulty increases, people naturally drift toward self-protection, isolation, and defensiveness.…
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Not Earned, but Worthy
In Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, an Army platoon risks everything to rescue a single soldier after his brothers are killed in combat. The film’s tension increases as members of the search party lose their lives during the rescue mission, forcing the rest of the team to wonder if saving Private Ryan’s life was worth…
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A Candle That Never Goes Out
On a cold October day in 1555, two English pastors were led to the center of Oxford to be burned alive. The first, Nicholas Ridley, was the highly intellectual bishop of London. Disciplined and sharp, he was incredibly influential in shaping the Protestant reforms in England and played a key role in developing the English…
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When Paul Corrected My Critique
I loved my time in college at Cedarville University. One of the things that distinguished it from other Christian colleges was its commitment to chapel every weekday at 10 a.m. Through my four years of college, I heard some of the greatest speakers in the country open the Word and preach. However, with roughly 1,000…
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Born For Adversity
There’s something special about a friend who appears when life is falling apart. When we are crushed by devastating news or agonizing loss. Proverbs tells us that “a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17). We know there’s a difference between acquaintances, fair-weather friends, and the deep, supportive…
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The Name on the Van
I loved attending the frequent events of my youth group as a teenager. From roller-skating nights to laser tag to all-nighters, we often piled into our church’s musty 15-passenger Dodge van to participate in activities designed to draw our unsaved friends to the ministry. Inevitably on these trips, before our youth pastor would release us…
Pastor Jeremy Stephens 